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Two Dallas cops were involved in the pre-arranged murder of Tippit...


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28 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Tom,

I misspoke.  Although I believe it is filled with lies, according to his testimony, Croy had been a professional cowboy for about 12 years, and he also worked in real estate, construction, and owned an “oil service station.”  He said he had also been in the Dallas police reserves “since August of 1959.”  That still seems like a pretty long time for that sort of thing.

As it says in your own post "Ron Bulman said," not me. I DO agree with Ron that Croy was a "wanna be" cop trying to find away onto the 'professional' full time force. IMO as a Reservist of 4 years, he would still be considered quite a 'small fish' within the DPD. Perhaps his minor league status was ample incentive to join the plot and as a reward be ushered into full time status with sponsorship from Captain Westbrook.

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2 hours ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Tom,

 Croy had been a professional cowboy for about 12 years, and he also worked in real estate, construction, and owned an “oil service station.” 

Jim,

 

What do you think the chances are that these are the same gas station?

 

Warren Commission testimony of Ray Hawkins on April 3, 1964:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/hawkins.htm

 

Hawkins responds to the Tippit shooting, but doesn't stop at 10th and Patton. He goes to the Library neighborhood at Jefferson and Marsalis (where the Library is, about six blocks east of where Tippit has been shot) ) and starts circling the area. He drives back to 10th and Patton, picks up Thomas Hutson, and then he and Baggett stop and make a phone call from a Mobil Gas Station at 10th and Beckley, leaving Hutson in the car. When Hutson blows the siren to let them know that a suspect has been seen at the Library, they go rushing back over there.

 

When Kenneth Croy testified to the Warren Commission on March 26, 1964, he said,

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/croy.htm

 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Where do you live?
Mr. CROY. 1658 Glenfield Dallas, Tex.

Mr. GRIFFIN. What is your occupation?
Mr. CROY. I have several.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Let's have them in order.
Mr. CROY. I am in the real estate business. I have a Mobil service station...”

 

1658 Glenfield is roughly a mile southwest of the Texas Theater

 

posting by an unknown author in the ReopenKennedyCase Forum 1/29/2014:

 

Croy’s home by the way was 1658 Glenfield. This was the same street that J. D. Tippit lived on until 1961. Glenfield was also the same street that Carl Amos Mather used to live on a few blocks from Tippit’s house when they first became friends. For those unfamiliar with Mather he is connected to proceedings becuase a license plate number was taken down by garage mechanic T. F. White close to the Texas Theater immediately after Oswald’s arrest that was traced back to Carl Amos Mather’s car. The occupant of the car seen by White bore an uncanny resemblance to Lee Harvey Oswald and Carl Mather, when interviewed, told of his friendship with J. D. Tippit. Tippit's old house of 1919 Glenfield, even though he and his family no longer lived there in 1963, was still in his possession and the property was rented out. As far as I'm aware it was never investigated who it was rented out to. Croy’s house was three blocks from the house Tippit owned. During his Warren Commission testimony it is interesting to note that Croy was not asked if he knew Officer Tippit.”

 

No explanation for Hawkins' mysterious phone call has ever been provided. I have also tried unsuccessfully to locate this Mobile gas station on Google Maps at any of the four corners of that intersection. Do you know hos to search property records?

 

Steve Thomas

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Steve,

I don't know about the Mobile station(s), but Joseph McBride might, and he's a member of the forum.  Why don't you send him a note?  

You also mentioned the Jefferson Library, which is yet another weird part of this weird case.


1:30pm-Jefferson Branch Library

Around 1:30pm nineteen-year-old Adrian Hamby drove his car into the park­-
ing lot at the Jefferson Branch Library at the corner of Denver and Jefferson (two blocks
from 1Oth & Patton). As he got out of his car two plainclothes policemen approached
him and asked what he was doing in the area (these men have never been identified). After
Hamby told them he worked at the library, they told him to go into the library and tell
the management to lock all of the doors. Hamby followed their instructions and ran
across the parking lot towards the entrance to the library.

Officers Leonard Jez, Charles Walker, and a newsman were driving south on
Denver when they noticed an unidentified white male running east across the lawn of
the library. The officers thought they had located the suspect and broadcast over their
police radio, "He's in the library, Jefferson-ah-East 500 block."

The squads of police officers inspecting the vacant houses and the area around
the Ballew Texaco Station immediately jumped in their cars and sped toward the library.
One of the squad cars, heading west on Jefferson Blvd., was within 1/2 block of the Texas
Theater before making a U-turn at Zang and speeding east toward the library. Within
a couple of minutes nearly every police car in the area was closing in on the library,
believing they had Tippit's murderer trapped.

. . . .

1:35 pm- Jefferson Branch Libraty

While Johnny Brewer and Butch Burroughs were checking the exit doors of the
Texas Theater, police cars began arriving at the Jefferson Branch Library. Police sur­-
rounded the library and ordered patrons to walk out with their hands in the air. When
Officer Walker spotted the man he saw running across the lawn, officers grabbed him
and pushed him against the wall. Detective Marvin A. Buhk, one of the officers who
responded to the call, said that a "Secret Service" man straightened out the problem.
Buhk reported, "One of the Secret Service men stated the person who came out of the
basement with the others was not the suspect and that he had already talked to him a
few minutes previously."62  But there were no Secret Service agents in Oak Cliff at 1:30 pm on
November 22. Whoever this unidentified person was, he was not a member of the Secret Service
and was unknown to Detective Buhk. This is yet another report that unidentified "Secret Service
agents" were encountered by witnesses following the assassination, yet all Secret Service agents were
with the President.

--From Harvey and Lee, pp. 858 and 860, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

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2 hours ago, Tom Neal said:

As it says in your own post "Ron Bulman said," not me. I DO agree with Ron that Croy was a "wanna be" cop trying to find away onto the 'professional' full time force. IMO as a Reservist of 4 years, he would still be considered quite a 'small fish' within the DPD. Perhaps his minor league status was ample incentive to join the plot and as a reward be ushered into full time status with sponsorship from Captain Westbrook.

FWIW

Lt. Ben McCoy is credited with calling up the RESERVES the DPD requested...

Lt. McCoy reported to Captain ARNETT

Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember who gave you these instructions that you are talking about? 
Mr. ARNETT. It seems like it was Captain Lawrence, but I couldn't swear to that, but it's---- 

Mr. GRIFFIN. And you are employed with the Dallas Police Department, is that right? 
Mr. ARNETT. No. I am a captain on the reserve. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, will you explain what the difference is between the reserve and the police department? 
Mr. ARNETT. Yes sir. Reserves were established about 10 or 11 years ago, to assist in, say, tornadoes or, you know, something that came up that they needed more help in to be trained on that. We don't draw any pay from the Dallas Police Department at all. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who does pay you? 
Mr. . ARNETT. Nobody. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. This is a completely voluntary thing on your part? 
Mr. ARNETT. Yes, sir. 

 

So Croy unilaterally decides to just "Go Home"

Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you at the scene when Tippit was there? 
Mr. CROY. Yes. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Unassigned? 
Mr. CROY. Yes. 

He doesn't seem to know what or where he was...  lol

Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you in a patrol car 
Mr. CROY. No; I was on foot. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you in uniform? 
Mr. CROY. In uniform. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where were you at the time President Kennedy was shot? 
Mr. CROY. Sitting in my car at the city hall.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Now, after the Tippit--how long did you remain at the scene of the Tippit killing? 
Mr. CROY. Oh, I would say a good 30 minutes. Thirty or forty minutes, something like that. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Then where did you go? 
Mr. CROY. Home. I went to eat. 

Mr. CROY. Well, I didn't go home. I went to eat. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Where did you go to eat? 
Mr. CROY. Austin Barbecue. 

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1137#relPageId=509&tab=page

LAWRENCE EXH #2 is the list of assignments for Nov 22...  There is plenty of info on CROY for the 24th... but not the 22nd.

He is listed here yet this is related to Oswald and the 24th... Croy's affidavit does not mention any activities from the 22nd.. despite his testimony claiming he was downtown, at the Tippit scene, at the Texas Theater and eats at Austin's...

How many coincidences can there be?

 

3047-002.gif 

 

 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Whoever this unidentified person was, he was not a member of the Secret Service
and was unknown to Detective Buhk. This is yet another report that unidentified "Secret Service
agents" were encountered by witnesses following the assassination, yet all Secret Service agents were
with the President.

--From Harvey and Lee, pp. 858 and 860, Copyright © 2003 by John Armstrong

Jim,

 

I did a piece on Secret Service Agents that had been reported in places other than Dealey Plaza a while back.

You can read a copy here if you like:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12084-secret-service-on-the-knoll-and-beyond/

 

Of Marvin Buhk, I wrote:

"As Buhk wrote in his after-action report to Police Chief Jesse Curry on December 3, 1963, “We converged on that location and there were Secret Service men and other patrol and CID officers present when all the people were ordered out of the building. One of the Secret Service men stated the person who came out of the basement with the others was not the suspect and that he had already talked to him a few minutes previously.”15.

Notice that Marvin Buhk speaks of more than one Agent being present. The “Agent” Buhk spoke to was also a primary catalyst in shifting attention away from the branch library. At 1:32PM, Patrolman C.T. Walker broadcasts on Channel 2 that the suspect is in the Library. At approximately 1:40 Sergeant C.B. Owens tells Dispatch, and the Dispatcher broadcasts to all cars to “Disregard all information on the suspect arrested, it was the wrong man.”16. This is only about an eight-minute window of opportunity. When did these “secret service men” arrive at the Library, how did they know to go there, and when did one of them have time to “talk to the man previously”?

I would also note that Marvin Buhk was a Detective and he distinguished between the "Secret Service" men, and officers of the Criminal Intelligence Division of the DPD. I think he would be able to tell the difference between the Secret Service and the Special Service Bureau of the DPD.

15. From Report to Chief J. E. Curry, by Marvin A. Buhk. Report concerning the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, (Original), 12/03/63. Dallas Police Archives, Box 2 Folder # 7: as cited in the City of Dallas Archives – JFK Collection http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box2.htm

16. Transcript of Radio Log, Channel 2. Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, Sawyer Exhibit A, volume XXI, pp. 396-397, as cited in the History Matters Archive, http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol21_0211a.htm

 

Steve Thomas

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37 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

 Croy's affidavit does not mention any activities from the 22nd.. despite his testimony claiming he was downtown, at the Tippit scene, at the Texas Theater and eats at Austin's...

 

David,

 

Have you read Croy's WC testimony closely? Can you make heads or tails of exactly which affidavit they are talking about?

I like this part:

Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that prepared by hand?
Mr. CROY. Yes, it was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you responsible for getting the typing done?
Mr. CROY. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who did you turn that report over to?
Mr. CROY. Captain Solomon.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Then was it his responsibility to get the typing done?
Mr. CROY. I don't know. I just turned it in. What he did with it, I don't know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did it eventually come back to you?
Mr. CROY. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. The typed copy never came back to you?
Mr. CROY. No.

The DPD brass didn't like what he had to say and had him come back and do another one.

Mr. CROY. No; well, I will put it this way, that it took us 8 hours to get that up. That is how interested they were.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You talked with them for 8 hours?
Mr. CROY. On 2 different occasions. That day and the next day, for 4 hours each day. That is pretty interesting.

Mr. CROY. No; we talked the entire thing over, and after we talked everything over and they brought the stenographer in and we went back over it again, then I left and she typed it up, and I came in the next day and we went back over it again and back over it and so on.

Mr. CROY. What it was, the stenographer took it, and then she typed it up. Then the next day I went back down there and they re-read it to me and went over and over and over and over the same thing over and over again. And then I took it into Lieutenant Curtis and signed it and had it notarized.

 

Steve Thomas

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10 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

David,

 

Have you read Croy's WC testimony closely? Can you make heads or tails of exactly which affidavit they are talking about?

I like this part:

Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that prepared by hand?
Mr. CROY. Yes, it was.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you responsible for getting the typing done?
Mr. CROY. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who did you turn that report over to?
Mr. CROY. Captain Solomon.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Then was it his responsibility to get the typing done?
Mr. CROY. I don't know. I just turned it in. What he did with it, I don't know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did it eventually come back to you?
Mr. CROY. No.
Mr. GRIFFIN. The typed copy never came back to you?
Mr. CROY. No.

The DPD brass didn't like what he had to say and had him come back and do another one.

Mr. CROY. No; well, I will put it this way, that it took us 8 hours to get that up. That is how interested they were.
Mr. GRIFFIN. You talked with them for 8 hours?
Mr. CROY. On 2 different occasions. That day and the next day, for 4 hours each day. That is pretty interesting.

Mr. CROY. No; we talked the entire thing over, and after we talked everything over and they brought the stenographer in and we went back over it again, then I left and she typed it up, and I came in the next day and we went back over it again and back over it and so on.

Mr. CROY. What it was, the stenographer took it, and then she typed it up. Then the next day I went back down there and they re-read it to me and went over and over and over and over the same thing over and over again. And then I took it into Lieutenant Curtis and signed it and had it notarized.

 

Steve Thomas

Pretty sure they are talking about this...  I've done some searching and cannot find the handwritten version... yet

DJ

947647874_AffidavitKennethCroy-smallerforweb.jpg.627e7012c9a4368985c0f4dc1a7bd1b1.jpg

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19 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

 

I did a piece on Secret Service Agents that had been reported in places other than Dealey Plaza a while back.

You can read a copy here if you like:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12084-secret-service-on-the-knoll-and-beyond/

 

Of Marvin Buhk, I wrote:

"As Buhk wrote in his after-action report to Police Chief Jesse Curry on December 3, 1963, “We converged on that location and there were Secret Service men and other patrol and CID officers present when all the people were ordered out of the building. One of the Secret Service men stated the person who came out of the basement with the others was not the suspect and that he had already talked to him a few minutes previously.”15.

Notice that Marvin Buhk speaks of more than one Agent being present. The “Agent” Buhk spoke to was also a primary catalyst in shifting attention away from the branch library. At 1:32PM, Patrolman C.T. Walker broadcasts on Channel 2 that the suspect is in the Library. At approximately 1:40 Sergeant C.B. Owens tells Dispatch, and the Dispatcher broadcasts to all cars to “Disregard all information on the suspect arrested, it was the wrong man.”16. This is only about an eight-minute window of opportunity. When did these “secret service men” arrive at the Library, how did they know to go there, and when did one of them have time to “talk to the man previously”?

I would also note that Marvin Buhk was a Detective and he distinguished between the "Secret Service" men, and officers of the Criminal Intelligence Division of the DPD. I think he would be able to tell the difference between the Secret Service and the Special Service Bureau of the DPD.

15. From Report to Chief J. E. Curry, by Marvin A. Buhk. Report concerning the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald, (Original), 12/03/63. Dallas Police Archives, Box 2 Folder # 7: as cited in the City of Dallas Archives – JFK Collection http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/box2.htm

16. Transcript of Radio Log, Channel 2. Warren Commission Hearings and Exhibits, Sawyer Exhibit A, volume XXI, pp. 396-397, as cited in the History Matters Archive, http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk...Vol21_0211a.htm

 

Steve Thomas

Steve,

A very thorough article.  Thanks!

We’re in agreement that the “Secret Service agents” Buhk encountered at the Jefferson Library were probably impostors.  In retrospect, at least, it’s hard to imagine another purpose for the subterfuge other than to redirect the search to the Texas Theatre.  And this may have been part of a campaign.  In the early years after the assassination, researcher Leo Sauvage indicated that he asked Dallas Assistant District Attorney Jim Bowie whether Postal’s telephone call had led to Oswald's arrest and Bowie answered that there was a call from the cashier but that there were also “half a dozen calls.”  This, of course, would help explain why 26 cops rushed to the theater.

The stories by Westbrook and Croy about their whereabouts immediately after the assassination seem, at least to me, exceptionally hard to believe.  We’ll never be able to prove it, but I think the chances are good that Westbrook and Croy were in the squad car  that Earlene Roberts heard and sort of saw at the N. Beckley rooming house, and that they were in the 2nd police car parked in the narrow driveway near 10th and Patton that only Doris Holan was in a position to see (from her vantage point on the second floor of the house across Tenth St., where she could see over Tippit’s car and down the driveway). 

Tippit_Aerial.jpg

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On 10/17/2018 at 8:30 AM, Jim Hargrove said:

There is no evidence that the Tenth & Patton Oswald (LEE) exited either police car.  Anyone interested in examining the evidence for the involvement of LEE Oswald, Westbrook, and Reserve Sgt. Croy in the murder of J.D. Tippit can read John’s new write-up here:

THE MURDER OF J.D. TIPPIT

Y'see, Jim, the reason I ask whether "Oswald" (or someone else) could have exited the Croy-Westbrook car in the alley, and then been intercepted by Tippit at the mouth of the alley - instead of while walking along the 10th Street sidewalk -  is that it's awfully strange that Tippit pulled over to block the mouth of that alley.  Strange especially if there's already a cop car in the alley. 

The only other thing I can postulate is that Tippit in one car and Croy-Westbrook in another were trailing Oswald at a distance, and at the corner Croy-Westbrook broke away, turned onto Patton and entered the alley, arriving just after Tippit had intercepted "Oswald" at the alley mouth on 10th.  But how did the cops in that alley car even know that alley was there?  It's really no more than a nameless drive-through between houses that is itself off another, perpendicular, alley.  Croy and Westbrook weren't Oak Cliff beat cops.  They may have figured that many blocks in Oak Cliff had alleys running the length of the block, separating the house lots on parallel streets - but how to figure a drive-through that would T-bone with 10th Street in that block?

There's a lot of police presence around that lousy little drive-through.  How did everybody converge on that obscure but fatal spot, and when? 

Edited by David Andrews
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21 hours ago, David Andrews said:

Y'see, Jim, the reason I ask whether "Oswald" (or someone else) could have exited the Croy-Westbrook car in the alley, and then been intercepted by Tippit at the mouth of the alley - instead of while walking along the 10th Street sidewalk -  is that it's awfully strange that Tippit pulled over to block the mouth of that alley.  Strange especially if there's already a cop car in the alley. 

The only other thing I can postulate is that Tippit in one car and Croy-Westbrook in another were trailing Oswald at a distance, and at the corner Croy-Westbrook broke away, turned onto Patton and entered the alley, arriving just after Tippit had intercepted "Oswald" at the alley mouth on 10th.  But how did the cops in that alley car even know that alley was there?  It's really no more than a nameless drive-through between houses that is itself off another, perpendicular, alley.  Croy and Westbrook weren't Oak Cliff beat cops.  They may have figured that many blocks in Oak Cliff had alleys running the length of the block, separating the house lots on parallel streets - but how to figure a drive-through that would T-bone with 10th Street in that block?

There's a lot of police presence around that lousy little drive-through.  How did everybody converge on that obscure but fatal spot, and when? 

Virginia Davis testified that Tippit lived at 410 E. 10th, which is why we speculate that he may have had a girlfriend there.  Since a number of people in the neighborhood seemed to know him, he must have been in the immediate vicinity a lot (even though his beat was elsewhere).

It is unusual to block a driveway with a car, even a squad car, one of several the reasons the meeting was probably planned.  We can only speculate about how Westbrook and Tippit may have determined Tippit’s exact parking procedure, including blocking the driveway, but that position would allow Tippit to see a squad car in the narrow driveway between the two houses before almost anyone else.  If memory serves, Earlene Roberts said there were two people in car 207, and the case that those two men were Croy and Westbrook (and not Lee Oswald) seems reasonably likely to me, considering the early arrival of both policeman at 10th and Patton.  

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4 hours ago, Steve Thomas said:

The "pertinent facts" might be that Croy knew Ruby.

In his Letter,  Croy said he had not seen Ruby since that breakfast of three years ago.

In his Affidavit, he said he saw and spoke to Ruby on the morning of the 24th.

Croy’s descriptions of how well he knew or didn’t know Ruby are about as believable as his tale of leaving the scene of the crime of the century to have lunch with his estranged wife. Most of us would agree that he probably helped Ruby kill Oswald and that he was, therefore, a part of the larger conspiracy.  Which brings us back to how well he knew or didn’t know a certain wallet....

That 10th & Patton wallet has been a real key to understanding the details of this case.  In 1996, the very year Hosty spilled the beans in Assignment: Oswald and the WFAA footage was re-discovered, Ken Croy continued his work covering things up by ‘splaining that he got the wallet from some unknown fellow and then gave it to Westbrook.  Croy even put it in writing just to make sure no one would thing this was bs. Does anyone know of evidence linking “Oswald” to “Hidell” outside of that planted wallet?

Croy_wallet_sig.jpg

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